Empty Cup
by Nozomi ga Kanau
Summary: Instead of Neytiri, Tsu'tey is the one forced to take Jake on as a warrior-in-training. Multi Chapter, WIP. *Chapter 7 added 1/10/12*
1. Chapter 1: You won't believe

Authors Note: So I was driving for two hours today and started thinking about peoples gripes on the movie. I decided to write what (I think!) would happen if a few things had been changed – notably the biggest complaints from others.

Will be rated PG-12ish, nothing horrid but there will be racism (human vs. Na'vi and vice versa), swearing, slight sexuality. Hope you all enjoy.

-Noz

**Empty Cup**

Getting lost wasn't really something Jake had planned on doing, not really. He had been told to learn about the Na'vi from the 'inside'. How to get to that point never crossed his mind, not even a little. Stupidly assuming that Grace would casual introduce him to the large indigenous, he failed to care.

The first trip made damn sure that would not happen.

But there he was, getting dragged into camp by a group of crazy-pissed natives, a knife at his braid. It gave him some idea, some inkling that the length of hair was in some way important; learning 'how' again came very low on his priority list. The chick saving him from certain death from the viperwolves and, more recently, the angry guy with the mohawk strode in front him with the waist shaking saunter of a woman used to owning whatever it was that came her way.

Stupid humans included.

He still didn't know her name. When it came to women, that hit high on his to do's. It was simply unnatural to not know the name of the pretty lady who just kicked some serious ass with a seemingly effortless multiple blows to string-thing hyenas with six legs.

Jake rather liked Pandora for the animals alone. Interestingly enough.

He squinted into the group of hoarding Na'vi. There were more than he thought in the forest. Sure, the forest was huge as was the tree but until that moment the greatest number of hulking, tiger-esque aliens with braids he had seen were the scant numbers in the Avatar program. They had nothing compared to the multitudes of sky colored creatures crowding him, all of different ages, styles.

Most of them wore the same decorations Grace did. None of the other Avatar riders had such things in their hair - only Grace. Jake blinked, frowned. The woman had been wearing native jewelry the entire time and he hadn't even looked -twice-? Disappointment in himself overshadowed the sharp tone of the older Na'vi man wearing more clothing than the rest.

Jake shifted, uncomfortable. At least the blade was gone from his hair. It unnerved him. The girl who saved his ass talked fluidly to the older man.

"What is he saying?" He saw her ear flick, one shoulder dip down in the slightest motion.

"My father is deciding whether or not to kill you."

After that, everything became a blur. It was harder to concentrate on some things in his Avatar body, a glitch he hadn't brought up to the wonderful doctor (a mistake, in retrospect). Maybe the other Na'vi moved too quickly, the lack of understanding the language hurt his ability to -listen- to the actual inflections within the conversation, rather than the words themselves. Whatever it was, Jake certainly did not appreciate it.

The dragon lady - tall, her hair like an Egyptian queens and a prick like any porcupine - spoke, declared him insane. Jake twitched his ears involuntarily, stared down at her with furrowed eyes and a cocked chin.

She looked to the angry young Na'vi warrior, spoke something that sent him into a flurry of hissing. His teeth were sharper than Jakes, than the girls. The blue man threw down his dagger, tail to the air and muscles tense with anger that personified all the humans feared.

"Tsu'tey," Dragon lady explained with a gentle brush of her hands towards the man, "Will teach you our ways. You are to go with him, learn what you can with this 'empty' cup of yours, Jakesully."

The warrior - Tsu'tey - snarled once more, crouched down towards the ground. Jake didn't look from the intense glare thrown at him from the native. If anything, he hardened his expression further, pulled his lips into something of a smirk.

Dragon lady and Chief Man noticed. Jake saw them exchange looks. Whether that was to be considered a positive thing, he didn't know, didn't want to ask in order to find out. He guessed it was something akin to his and Chief Mans shared, small nod - something between those who knew what they were looking for, who wanted to know more about what it was, exactly, that was going on.

He really, really didn't like that.

Tsu'tey said something sharp to the girl who had saved his ass, a single word. 'Neytiri'. She only glanced at him with those too big eyes, blinked once, but otherwise did not respond. Tsu'tey spoke again, this time beginning with that same word, something Jake guessed was her name, and other things followed.

Neytiri shot Jake a look he could have classified as pity. It was then that Tsu'tey walked to him with the same heavy gait as Neytiri. His arms swung more, a dominance display Jake knew well from the human 'counterparts'.

"You are a waste of my time," Tsu'tey spat out, his lips curled into a grimace. "Why Mo'at did not throw your worthless hide to the viperwolves escapes me."

"Tsu'tey," The female Na'vi switched her weight, moved just enough in front of Jake to keep him from attacking the human. "Tsahik doesn't give orders lightly. There is wisdom to what she says."

"There is-" Tsu'tey shook his head, his face still pulled into a mask of distaste. Another shake of his skull, the tinkling of braids and beads sounding with it, deceptively pretty. "Come, Dreamwalker."

Jake hesitated for the briefest of moments. Then, the humanoid swung himself around Neytiri, grinned at the glowering warrior. His reply came out much smoother than he imagined it would: "Sure."

Tsu'tey spun on his heel. Without waiting for Jake, he stalked off to the gigantic tree. Jake trotted after, his tail flashing every which way.

——-

Jake opened his eyes. He grinned up into the worried scientists eyes, shoved himself up.

"Doc," he said, frame relaxed. "You are NOT going to believe where I am."


	2. Chapter 2: JESUS CHRIST

Authors Note: Thank you all for your kind comments! I've been trying to keep up and reply to each and every one of you, however I was simply overwhelmed. It was the pleasant sort, so if I haven't gotten to you by the time this is posted, please know I read every single comment and received a wonderful feeling from it.

My apologies for taking so long with this second chapter; my car was totaled, resulting in a lack of independent driving anywhere, major upset, and an addiction to Harvest Moon. I'm broke but! Luckily, I have a job with people I rather adore. Please bear with me! I promise I am more than wanting to continue this story. I am determined to finish it. HO!

-Noz

Disclaimer: As before, this story is my idea what would have happened if one of the more popular gripes with the movie had changed: instead of Neytiri teaching Jake, it is Tsu'tey. It will involve everything the original movie did – swearing, violence, war, racism, and some mild sexuality. Please be warned!

I have not read any of the survival guides and I am not writing this AS I watch the movie, only from memory so dialogue may be different than the original. I do not own Avatar, let us praise James Cameron for that. I hope you all enjoy this chapter.

Empty Cup, Chapter Two

"Alright. Let's go through this just one more time, Jake," Grace held up a screen with a large picture of one of the Omaticaya people on it. Jake glanced, inwardly rolled his eyes.

"Mo'at. Dragon lady."

"She is the tsahik, the spiritual leader. She is the one that interprets the will of Eywa."

"Who's Eywa?"

"Who's _Eywa_?" Norm spoke in a tone Jack had become readily associated with: irritation and disbelief at his ignorance. The lanky man leaned heavily against the Avatar chamber, hostility showing from every twitch in his expression. "She's only their goddess, their _deity _that exists in every living thing," his lip curled: disdain. "But you would know that if you had any training."

Grace shook her head, looked over to Jake. Another picture. "And this?"

"Eytucan," Jake swung around to his chamber, a grin almost breaking through his lips.

"Eytu-kahn. He is the leader of the Omaticaya clan but Mo'at is the spiritual leader. Do you understand?"

"Right, right," A swing up. It hurt, still. His arms no longer ached with the strain but when his legs wouldn't move, it kicked a part of him. They should have worked.

Only a few trips into his Avatar and Jake had already become addicted. The feel of legs, strong legs with the ability to carry him further and longer than his human form ever had – it almost hurt with how much he missed being able to walk on his own. It killed another part of his soul each time he went back into the numb limbs of his human body. Should have shamed him but it didn't.

"And him?"

"Tsu'tey."

"SU-tey. He's to be the next clan leader. And?"

Jake looked to the side, to Graces nail bitten and calloused hand. The picture on the screen was that of the young female warrior, the one who stalked when she moved instead of swishing and with the decorated hair. He reached out, gingerly taking it from her.

"Neytiri," He smiled, faintly, and shrugged. Grace, seemingly pleased, kept herself from sighing at his pronunciation.

"Good. She's going to be the next tsahik. They'll become a mated pair."

He felt his own flutter of agitation with that remark. Neytiri seemed to have anger problems of her own but the thought of her attached to the violently explosive Tsu'tey just came off as wrong.

Jake pushed the screen back at Grace, fell back against the squishy soft bedding of his chamber. "Let's get on with this," he said instead of anything in actual reply. Grace smiled, made one last biting remark Jake didn't bother computing fully, and closed the lid.

Much like his capture, Jake did not expect to wake up the way he did. In a strange body was one thing – this time he opened his eyes to come face to face with a scowling, angry, very male Na'vi. Neytiri had at least been dressed in a very fetching loincloth when they met. Tsu'tey (perhaps fortunately) wore a great deal more.

He had on the same outfit he had the day before – a long, wide loincloth and a thickly banded thing that seemed to be a mix between shoulder pads and a necklace. They were golden in color though Jake fiercely doubted that the 'gold' on Pandora had the same stuff in it that Earths own did. Things that appeared to be gems had been hammered into it, the metal having clearly been beaten repeatedly with something small and heavy. Against the varying tones of blue on the skin, it had a striking appearance.

And the mohawk. Always a distinguishing feature in Jakes mind. He grinned at the warrior, his hammock swinging in the violence of his own jerking movements. His hands grappled at the edges of the sleeping hammock, fingers tightening in an instinctive reaction to the hostility and resentment in the aliens' eyes.

The rope felt almost slippery, very nearly alive. Like most of the plants on the strange planet, it hummed under his touch. After running around on Pandora for those first almost frightening hours and playing with the wide-spread, glowing mushroom like things, it started to register as normal in his mind. Grace never mentioned it; the possibility of the phenomenon being strictly for the Na'vi people could be the sort of thing the nerdy scientist would be interested in.

Jake decided then and there to hold the information hostage until he could wield it against her. Tactical advantage and all that.

"Morning, sunshine!" The chipper tone to his voice had Tsu'tey snarling. The curled lips and pearly, sharp teeth seemed oddly human. For some reason, that came off as weirder than the humming plants and disgusting black viperwolves. Jake would take the time later to dissect how to piss the alien off even more, just to incite other interesting facial features. "Miss me?"

Tsu'tey only scowled further. Jake snorted, about to crack another very possibly irritating joke when Tsu'tey reached forward. The Na'vi grabbed him by the hair. The bolt of panic never arrived: Tsu'tey had the sense not to take hold of the thick braid as they had when he was captured. The angry blue cat had taken hold of the 'normal' bump of hair at the top of his head. His tact kept Jake from punching in square in the flat nose in the instant reaction that would have happened had he grabbed at the braid. Jake fell still.

"Be quiet," Tsu'tey spoke in low, angry tones, his voice hot. Jake cocked his Avatars' head as much as he could in the grip. He saw Tsu'teys' muscles twitch high in his arm. Jake knew that involuntary quirk; it meant Tsu'tey was trying his hardest to not give a violent shake. Jake appreciated that. He'd hate to get into a fist fight his first day. "Jakesully, I did not _ask_ for this responsibility. You should not be here."

"Y'know, Neytiri said that too," He pursed his lips in a mockingly contemplative gesture. Tsu'tey growled low in his throat, a rumble.

"She is right. You Dreamwalkers are nothing but trouble!" Tsu'tey then spat out a word in his native language. It sounded remarkably like 'scum' but with a long 'o' noise to it.

"Was that an insult?"

Tsu'tey said it again. Jake saw a smile, the Smurf bastard. He rolled his eyes and Tsu'tey released him. Oh, yeah. He had started to smirk. Asshole.

"You learn to ride, today."

Jake cocked his chin upwards, wary of the implications. "Ride what?" He felt his tail flick – nerves? It moved without him telling it to, like a person who had no control of their facial features. Many other Na'vi seemed to have constantly moving tails. Could be it was something they never learned to control.

Tsu'tey smiled. Jakes' ears laid back, flat against his skull.

"Fuck," said Jake.

*

"Jesus Christ!"

The ground tasted of feet and animal shit. Jake spat out a mouthful of it, coughing up another. Derisive laughter echoed above him, strong blue feet stepping into his line of vision. It took all of his self control to not grab Tsu'teys' knee and jerk it out from under him.

He pushed himself from the ground, legs spreading to keep his balance. Jake stuck out his tongue, peeling as much of the mud from the muscle as he could. He almost fell again when a very female voice called out behind Tsu'tey.

The tall warrior turned around to face a displeased looking Neytiri. She had a beast with her, a long arm wrapped up and under its strong neck, four fingers stroking against the skin. Tsu'teys' laugh turned into a genuinely fond smile, twisting to a smirk when Neytiri started to talk.

Jake didn't know the Omitacaya language, just stood there like the idiot he felt like. A flash of embarrassment had him scrubbing at his face. Tsu'tey responded in kind, drawing a small smile to the female.

"Tsu'tey did not explain well," said Neytiri in English, finally looking to Jake. The smile had faded into something more serious, Tsu'tey looming in the background with that cocky sneer, arms crossed over his slim chest. "You simply jumped to her?"

"Uh, yeah," Jake flicked some mud away, lips coated still with mud. "Well, I was sort of _thrown_ onto him."

"She is female."

"Her. Yeah, that."

Neytiri sighed. She looked back to Tsu'tey, then back to Jake when all the warrior did was shrug carelessly.

"She is not a creature to simply be 'thrown up on', Jakesully. Touch her," Jake looked up to the huge, skittish creature he had just tried to ride. Neytiri took hold of his wrist, her other hand forcing his fingers flat. With calculated gentle energy, she pressed his palm and fingers to the hot surface of the animals' side. Jake blinked, looked over to the tall woman. She returned the gaze, her expression intense. "_Feel_ her. Her body, her strong legs. It is not enough to be _on_ her. You must know her. Try. Again."

"Yes, ma'am." Jake pulled his hand away, uncomfortable. Neytiri did not seem deterred; she watched as he hooked his hands on the neck ridge of the horse and swung himself onto the animal. There were no wild horses on Earth and he had never ridden one.

Stories of old societies sprang up in history lessons of course but unless a person wanted to stare at the beasts through a thick pane of glass at a preserve or a farm where they were slaughtered, no one laid eyes on wild animals. Few could even get the meat when it came available. Earth died long ago in one war or another, unleashed by nuclear something or the other. Science had evolved but wars had not. Old school soldiers were always needed.

Jake figured they always would be.

He shrugged the dim thoughts away. It did no good to mourn what he did not know. A life of brown skies and air-purified buildings was all he had known.

"So now I just say-"

"No, no," Neytiri gestured to Jakes' braid. He glanced at it, took a hold of it. "Did Tsu'tey at least tell you of tsaheylu? The bond?"

Jake cast Tsu'tey a glance, his hand finding the braid behind him. It had become muddy. He looked at the animals own attachment. A moment's hesitation and the two tendrils wrapped together. The strange curl of another mind against his came for the second time that day.

Tsu'tey told him of the bond with the declaration that Jake wouldn't be able to handle such an intense connection with another living being. Jake had jumped, muttered an obscenity, and Tsu'tey laughed the same way as he did when the human fell off the back of the direhorse.

The next time, with Neytiri, all he did was twitch. She smiled in return, giving the direhorses' neck a soft stroke.

"Now, tell her to go straight."

"I just tell her to go—JESUS CHRIST!"

Jake managed to stay on the bolting animal for exactly five seconds before tumbling to the ground. He counted. Tsu'tey started laughing again.


	3. Chapter 3: Dinner

Disclaimer: As before, this story is my idea what would have happened if one of the more popular gripes with the movie had changed: instead of Neytiri teaching Jake, it is Tsu'tey. It will involve everything the original movie did – swearing, violence, war, racism, and some mild sexuality. Please be warned! Don't own it, Cameron does. Woot!

I look up information on names and spelling ONLY.

AN: Again, sorry for taking so long! I bought the movie the day it came out at twelve thirty at night! I've been watching it at least once a day and thuuuus this story will be coming out much, much quicker.  
Hopefully you'll enjoy this chapter. I appreciate EVERYONE who reads this and doubly so for those of you that reply. You're all lovely.

Jake kept careful watch on Tsu'tey's expression nearing the end of their little lesson. The previously emotional warrior had his face closed off in an expression Jake had only previously seen on well trained Marines (such as himself, of course). It was as if Neytiri's presence irritated the male Na'vi; he went out of his way to keep to the side and, eventually, shove the encounter to a screeching halt.

Tsu'tey maneuvered himself in front of Neytiri, their chests nearly touching. Perched on the still-skittish direhorse, Jake watched her expression shutter off. Tsu'tey said something sharp in Na'vi, earned himself a softly spoken and equally irritated reply. She looked to Jake quickly before Tsu'tey spoke again, that second time in English.

"You have nothing to do with this Dreamwalker teachings. If the Tsahik wanted you, she would have said."

A dismissal if Jake had ever heard one. Neytiri narrowed her eyes in acknowledgement, apparently having come to the same conclusion of the human. She canted her head back in unspoken challenge, lips parted. Jake kept his eyes down and eyes up on the slight twitches of change on her expression. Bitch had a temper, one that ran as hot as Tsu'tey.

At least the future clan leader had the sense enough to not back down. His muscles tightened in anticipation of an argument, shoulders straightened and hands loose by his sides. Bouncing would not be the proper word for the shallow bob of weight from one foot to the other, the shadow of the quick, crouching dance he'd seen other Na'vi do when anxious. Tsu'tey's tail, though, that stayed still.

Neytiri's didn't; her tail flicked and twitched, from one side to the other in a valiant attempt to hide her wounded pride. Jake assumed it was wounded, anyway. The princess didn't come off as the type to appreciate someone defying her. She didn't nod, didn't give any indication of bowing to Tsu'tey's not-so-hidden statement to bug off. Neytiri turned, walked off without a single swing to her hips and a twitching her tail. The direhorse she rode up on made a noise of greeting. Both men watched her in short lived silence.

"She usually like that?" Jake threw Tsu'tey's unwavering back a knowing look only to be promptly rewarded with a mocking snort.

"It must be her distaste for ignorant infants, Jakesully," Tsu'tey turned back to him. Gone was the expression of disinterest; it had been replaced by that same searing dislike he'd become accustomed to seeing on the large Na'vi's face. Tsu'tey gestured to Jake and his direhorse then to the wide expanse of land he'd been trying in vain to ride. "Again. This time, correctly."

Jake stared down at the huge beast, fingers flexing against the leathery hide - not a horseman, Jake did not like the big stupid thing at all. The problem with that was the animal was -not- stupid, she was indeed a very smart creature, albeit still a very simplistic one. There were no thoughts in her that seemed coherent and human - perhaps they made more sense to the Na'vi than to him.

His top time had risen from jack shit to six and a half seconds. For a guy who'd never even seen a normal-sized, Earth based horse before, Jake thought he was doing pretty well, bruised ass aside. The direhorse had been getting less frustrated with his efforts much to both of their surprise.

Tsu'tey put his hands on the animal's neck. Jake rolled his eyes and looked away from the badly hidden smirk on Tsu'tey's lips.

"Do not attempt to 'become one' with her, Jakesully," The mockery of Neytiri's advice rang loud and clear. Sarcasm wasn't something Jake thought the Na'vi had picked up from Grace's school. "You are not one of us. She knows this. She is a fellow creature and is allowing you to make the bond. Treat her with respect. You are not her equal."

"I _have_ been treating her with respect. What do I do - sacrifice one of those wolves to her in worship?"

Tsu'tey sneered. "Sit properly. She is not ikran! Do not crouch," He pushed at Jakes back, a huff of a breath leaving the Avatar. A pull to his braid and his back straightened further. Tsu'tey didn't bother to criticize him again, even when Jakes ears laid back and lips pulled into something akin to dislike; a swift flick of his fingers had the direhorse bolting quicker than it had when Jake or Neytiri urged it to 'go'.

"Fu - STOP!" The direhorse didn't falter despite the shrieked verbal command. Its feet slammed steadily against packed muddy ground, heart pounding against Jake's mind and legs as Neytiri said he would, he should, and at the same time there was that particular distance between the two. Jake didn't try to force her into his way of thinking and, with that, she didn't fight him. Sort of.

Jake heard her in his head with pictures and sounds and the underlying 'go go go' of her brain, totally ignoring the 'fuck no stop shit' in his own. His voice sat too softly in her consciousness, her own desperate glee overriding whatever it was Jake wanted to say. She wanted to run, wanted to do something, and the thing on her back wasn't strong enough to keep her from doing it.

"Fuck shit STOP!" said Jake. The attempt at spoken came out as another garbled yell, followed by a grunt when she did just as told, despite the lack of any actual communication. The direhorse locked her knees, stopped dead in her tracks with feet buried firmly in the dark ground.

Avatar reflexes or not, Jake broke free from Tsahaylu and tumbled right over the horses neck. The ground failed to soften the fall; his body hit hard and dead weight, stone to the ground and pain

"Damnit!" Jake punched at the mud as hard as he could, only to come back swearing, shaking his hand with the sudden tweak of pain. The direhorse pranced nervously ahead of him, short meaty tail twitching. "Crap!"

In a disgusting twist of déjà vu, Tsu'tey's bare feet once more came into Jakes ground level eyesight. Unlike the first time, his toes twisted into the ground and Tsu'tey leaned down. Jake twitched with the fierce clamp of fingers and the sudden sucking sensation of his stomach to the mud before he was able to scramble to his feet with the other mans assistance. His shoulder burned with the pressure; Tsu'tey appeared to be just as strong as the others of his people, if not more so.

"You stopped her."

The demanding statement received no immediate answer, Jake flicking mud from his arm."What do you mean?" he said instead of 'fuck'.

"She stopped and you had not spoken. You screamed, infant," Tsu'tey crossed his arms, sneering when Jake rolled his eyes. "How?"

"I told her loud enough. I screamed like a baby if you weren't listening," he laughed, coughed up some more dirt. Jake looked at Tsu'tey, frowning when he saw a scowl growing on Tsu'tey's face. "-Yeah?"

Tsu'tey continued to glare and flicked his hand at Jake much as he had to the direhorse. "Again."

*

The Na'vi enjoyed their little community meals. Jake hadn't bothered to count their actual numbers - Grace had told him once that they numbered between two hundred and fifty to three hundred, all depending on the season, births, deaths, and some other random science mumbo-jumbo he'd never paid much attention to. She'd also said they were big on family but the children and new mothers would go first, then the older teens and then finally all of the warriors.

Since Tsu'tey and he went to eat long after the sun had set, Jake figured he'd been grandfathered into the 'warrior' bin for associating with the other man. The second night he followed him into the clans, he managed not to step on any tails. Tsu'tey's warning and very stance stayed burned into his brain the entire night.

"Say nothing stupid," he said in short tones. Jake rolled his eyes, ears once more laid back. Ass exposed, Tsu'tey being a dick, and after being thrown from an alien donkey for hours did not put him in a good mood - the others attitude did little to put him in better mood. Somehow, the human kept himself from scowling - a simple huff sufficed. "Keep your tail close, do not step on others."

"Don't breathe, don't talk, don't move, yeah?"

"Yes," Tsu'tey growled out his response, gritted teeth and all. Jake stifled a sigh, tilted his blunt chin upwards. Tsu'tey reminded him too much of Augustine to be anything short of full out annoying. The warrior muttered something in Na'vi, something rude, rolled his shoulders for perhaps the seventh time that day. A nervous tic? Jake hoped so. "You should not be here."

Jake laughed only to watch Tsu'tey's muscles stiffen with his indignant anger. "Neytiri said the same thing."

"She is wise," said Tsu'tey, dark threat to his words. When Jake didn't rise to the challenge of his anger, they continued on to the huddled mass of Omaticaya people. Many of them sat hunched over, not unlike the apes he had seen many years ago in one of Tony's textbooks but also with a bent-knee and purposefully so, graceful. It felt wrong to think of them in the same context of the stuff in Tony's books.

They talked amongst themselves in what sounded like gossip and amusement, recounting this and that although he had no true idea of what. He heard his name, muffled, whispered between laughter, slurred with both of the names mashed together. Somewhere, what sounded like a man sang. Augustine would have a frickin' field day in the warm depths of the Omaticaya's tree.

The moment the unlikely duo stepped into the campfires crackle and glow, all fell silent. Chewing even paused, hands froze in the midst of grabbing or eating. Everyone turned towards them, silent condemnation in their eyes; even Tsu'tey received the same glares as Jake, lips pursed in heady disapproval. Both men took on the scrutiny in the same manner: straight shoulders, set eyes. Nothing said 'paranoid fighter with a knife' like a gait meant for a prisoner and a stiff tail. Even Mo'at looked on, the only one with mistrust in her gaze. Or anything, for that matter. Dragon Lady sat stone-faced.

Jake managed to keep away from the others crouched bodies, his tail held firmly in hands he sure would sweat if they could. His hands and ears were the only part of him that hadn't started to mist when upset or overworked or stressed out in this form. The moisture didn't even seem to bead up; his skin - their skin? - simply grew slick with some sort of liquid.

It should've been weird. Considering the fact he inhabited an alien body that had been made to fit his brother, Jake figured he'd seen much weirder in his time.

Tsu'tey sat near Neytiri, eyes on the campfire. Jake followed in suit, ears pressed back to the sudden shriek of his muscles. The fucking she-horse had managed to not leave a bruise on him but still left her mark. Brilliant.

People didn't look away. They continued to eat in small doses, chewing slowly. Their discontent tried to suffocate Jake, perhaps would have if Mo'at didn't speak up.

"Jakesully," she said in that same slurring of his full name, made it sound like some title rather than what it really was. "Have you reconsidered yet?"

Tsu'tey jerked his head to Jake when the Avatar grinned, warning on his face. "Not just yet, ma'am. I think the horses like me."

She watched him, eyes tight to Jakes. That smile didn't budge. "As they throw you from their backs, Jakesully?"

Neytiri smiled into her hand, Tsu'tey even managing a huff of what Jake assumed was laughter. Jake was passed a large, flat leaf filled with food; the young woman who handed it to him did not look to his face but, instead, Tsu'tey. The warrior in question had turned his attention to Neytiri, murmuring something in coherent when Mo'at smiled.

"Eat, Jakesully. You will need it."


	4. Chapter 4: Guilt and Connections

Authors Note: I realize my chapters are very short, around one scene long on average. I'm going to try combining 'two' chapters this time around. At the risk of sounding like a comment-whore, I'm also going to ask the readers of this humble fanfiction on whether you would prefer to wait a longer time or receive longer chapters.

As Captain Planet said, the power is YOURS!

Once again, I adore you all for even coming to look at my fic. Avatar does not belong to me. I'm borrowing it for the ideas in my brain-space.

**Chapter Four **

"Log four. This is day - fuck it, no one is listening, I don't care. Does anyone even listen to these things?" Jake stared into the silent machine, his eyebrows arched in challenge. When the camera didn't respond to his query, the Marine rolled his eyes heavenwards. He leaned on one arm, elbow to the table. A deep sigh left him then, continuing to speak in a low, almost bored tone. "It's the same as the last few days. Tsu'tey has banned Neytiri from even coming near me. I think Mo'at finds it funny; she always twitches a little when it's brought up.

"Today, we started tracking. Tsu'tey says that in order to be worth anything, an Omitacaya needs to be able to find his own prey. My eyes are blind and I'm useless. It's actually pretty funny," Another roll of the eyes, this time towards the screen. Jake watched his own face as he talked. "The more of this that goes on, I can't help but think about Tony. He'd be pissed as hell to see me walking around in a loincloth, swearing all around the natives. Don't think he'd care so much about dying as he would not being able to see this place - it's crazy.

"Augustine didn't even know plants lit up at night, the ones in the forest anyway. No night ops, according to Quaritch. You listening to this, Colonial? Probably not. I could start talking about old recons and no one would know the difference.

"Least she knew -we- lit up at night. Kind of freaky. I feel like I'm some walking, glowing tiger sometimes. Especially with the ears, the tail," Jake grinned, lower lip caught between his teeth ruefully. "Can't say I smell overly well. Tsu'tey, he's trying to show me that each animal has a different scent, expects me to tell him which smell like what. He swears at me when I tell him I can't smell any difference. Sounds like 'scum'? Norm just makes this noise, goddamnit, and won't translate.

"Fucker." Jake thrust his middle finger proudly upwards aimed directly towards the video. "If you see this, know you irritate me, Norm. You're jealous and I know it sucks but it's not like I -tried- to be chased by that giant black thing.

"Anyway. I'm tired and find this completely useless since nothing's changed. Tsu'tey is still trying to get rid of me, Norm is pissed, Augustine is a bitch and- fuck, I'm tired. Sully, signing off." He resisted flashing the camera a peace sign, instead just flicking the machine off. Out of the corner of his eyes, Jake saw his face flash from sight on the screen. He looked tired.

Three days straight of two lives and a grand total of fifteen hours of sleep in them all. Wake up Na'vi, put up with Tsu'tey's shit only to wake up Jake, report to the lifeless camera, report to soulless Quaritch, eat while reporting to Augustine, sleep for five hours, wake up Jake, go into coffin, and wake up Na'vi. Wash, rinse, repeat. At least when he was in the 'Cong back on Earth they were able to get more than fifteen hours of sleep in half a week.

Jesus, he never thought he would've missed being back on Earth. It held little appeal to him in general, going back home. Pandora wasn't exactly where he wanted to be but, hell, anything beat the disgusting brown anarchy that was Earth; rotating back was the last thing on Jakes mind.

Still, sleep would be damn good.

He shoved himself from the metal table, chair squeaking under the sudden shift. The entire lab smelled of chemicals and sterile Hell, of science. Jake could all but feel the bags start to form under his eyes, the lines to his face, and regardless, he grabbed hold of his wheels, turned, and began the long journey to what was affectionately called the War Room.

The amount of activity at night on the base had surprised Jake at first. Dozens of people moving with swift steps, wide awake, preppy and ready to go. Most of the women worked nights, he'd begun to notice, especially women scientists. High pony tails, makeup. They didn't bother to look at him as the former Marine rolled on by. Augustine, damn her, probably had passed out long ago.

Quaritch watched for him. The colonial looked as if he had just woken up from a long and glorious nap, his eyes bright, attentive. When Jake entered the room, he felt the immediate attention of Quaritch and to some extent Selfridge even though the corporate pig studied the digital representation of Hometree rather than Jake.

"Sully," Quaritch managed to sound welcoming only in the way ex-military men could. He smiled, cocky and somewhat malicious, his head angling towards the large image of the tree on the vid-table. "What've you got? It better be useful.'

Jake hissed out a smile, expression not quite reaching his eyes. The mission, simple, it required the same thing Augustine did but with a different angle. She wanted culture, how the Avatar managed to this and that, what Tsu'tey or Mo'at or the children did or said or pissed or whatever it was she looked for when she looked. Quaritch (and Selfridge, by extension) wanted to know what the insides of the place looked like, the weapons, the fighting style.

Some dark place in Jakes mind whispered traitorous thanks that he didn't know enough on how they fought or hunted to report to Quaritch on any of the warrior life. Soon but until Tsu'tey trusted him enough to give him a knife or bow, Jake would not have to sell that particular part of his soul.

"Inside structure. You're missing a whole vat of it," Jake ignored Selfridge and the favor was returned. For all of his claims of Jake being 'lucky', the mouse-faced man preferred to stay away from any and all doings of both a scientific and military standpoint. He stopped at the table, leaning over to study the display. "It's not just a regular tree. They actually live in there. It's hollowed out, sort of."

Quaritch leaned down, fists on the table and entire upper body inclined towards the display. No greed showed in his gaze but something dangerous. Jake didn't concentrate on that too familiar expression, one elbow canted on the table. Selfridge cast him a glare but other than him, Quaritch, Jake and a few techs, no one was there to get upset at the Marine becoming impudent with his position.

"They have to get up and down through spirals, they go all around the inside," Jake gestured to the image and ignored the niggling bit of guilt in the depths of his throat. Stupid. Under cover was never what he did; Jake was muscle, not the brains. H was never meant to be stealth. Secrecy was his brothers' thing. "It's how they get up and down the way they do so quickly. They aren't leaping from branch to branch - those are too big anyway."

Another wave of his hand and Jake continued. His mouth kept moving, voice and words coming out, and his mind managed to shut itself off completely from the on goings. Quaritch laughed, said something derogatory about the Na'vi and their native status, Jake looked at him while he talked in what could have been considered a stoic Marine's approval. The older man probably took it as such, leaned against the edge of the war-room table as the picture began to move to Jake's specifications. The lab tech entered things into the computer to create the spirals Jake spoke of, adjusted the length and width of some of the branches necessary to the movement of the Omitacaya.

It all came to his ears as muffled white noise, even his own voice. Jake didn't know what he said about the structure of the tree or how they used hammocks strung from this branch or those leaves, where they kept the food or the fire. Yes, he assured Selfridge for the tenth time before Quaritch lost his temper, they knew all about fire and it's affects on the world around him.

Jake didn't allow himself the pleasure of actually thinking; that act seemed blatantly disrespectful.

For all his bitching about lack of sleep, Jake couldn't keep his eyes shut that night.

Tsu'teys bow snapped out from behind his back, wrist twisting out. The hard wood landed on Jakes arm with a fierce noise, a ruler smacking the unsuspecting ass of a schoolboy from a nun. Despite the intense training from his years as a Marine, the man flinched, arm jerking from its previously outstretched position.

"What the hell?" Tsu'tey sniffed from in front of the Avatar, his long body half-turned with a scowl Jake had become all too accustomed with. "I wasn't doing anything."

The full upper lip curled to bear Tsu'teys sharp teeth. It made him look like an animal, the asshole. Tsu'tey didn't talk much and when he did, it usually came out insulting or in tangents akin to some dictator. Neither of them liked the other more than they initially had. Regardless, Mo'at had been right: Tsu'tey was possibly the best teacher Jake could ask for. He didn't take shit, didn't gently push Jake along as he figured Neytiri probably would have.

After the military, having someone be in control and ordering him around somehow lessened the intense near-hatred he held for the Omitacaya man. Contempt was there, sure, but at least he could respect a tough, angry warrior. Hell, he'd been surrounded by them back on Earth. If it weren't for Tsu'teys own bigotry and superiority complex, Quaritch would've probably liked him.

Asshole.

"You must touch everything. You are not child," said Tsu'tey, not for the first time. It wasn't even the fifth or sixth time and had quickly become his most used phrase in reference to Jake. "Be happy I do not take you to a poisonous tree. No one would care if you had bubbles under your skin."

Jake somehow kept his face semi-stoic, that same blank stare he would give Quaritch when the scarred man talked about his past wars, the current war on Earth, or the future war with the natives. Tsu'tey sneered, that same upwardly curling movement the human wanted to slam his face into. Jake grinned, something that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"You wouldn't ruin this pretty face. I make you look good," He grinned, somehow unsurprised at Tsu'teys derisive snort. Jake shrugged, his thumbs tucking into the damned thin strings of the native loincloth. "Besides, how else am I going to learn what sort of stuff is going to make my eyes boil?"

Tsu'tey stared. Jake didn't think the Omitacaya would've ever heard that particular saying before, took a sort of delight in the rare times he was able to outwit the warrior. Tsu'tey was full of muscle and smarts (along with a healthy dose of skepticism) but every so often Jake managed to get a one up on him.

"I - Do not talk anymore," Tsu'tey waved his bow-arm at Jake in some manner of a dismissal. Tsu'teys eyes rolled as did his head, looking off into the distance of the forest. "You follow and keep silent. Hunting does not require your language."

"Fantastic," the mutter went ignored by the native, slender body already having begun to walk away from Jake and civilization. The human sighed, eyes heavenwards, and jogged after his teacher. "If you're all spiritually connected, why do the People even -hunt- animals? Aren't they supposed to be brothers or sisters?"

That time, Jake didn't miss Tsu'teys sneer or the flash of bright white teeth. "Do not listen to Neytiri," Tsu'tey said, his tone acidic. "We spoke of this. She is of the otherworldly nature, that is not your concern."

"Doesn't answer my question."

The expected violent hit to his head or back never came. Tsu'teys mouth remained in a tight sneer until they ducked into the first surrounding foliage of the village. When he spoke, the words came quieter, like a child telling a secret. "We must eat to live as all animals do. It is what life is - eat or starve. Connections do not - they cannot stop that fact."

Jake looked at him from the corner of his eyes. Tsu'teys ear laid flat back, muscles clenched tight under the decorative outfitting and striped skin. He did not look back at Jake even though his jaw twitching gave way to the fact he knew he was being studied.

"What's Neytiri being all otherworldly have to do with that? You don't believe in the whole living beings are connected bit?"

"Of course I do!" -Then- the blow came. Jake first heard the whip of Tsu'teys tail and the whistle of his hand. He dropped to the ground in a crouch, bent back, and one hand pressed flat to the ground for balance. Tsu'tey glared down at him and thrust the bow down between Jake's legs - then grinned in rough triumph when Jake let out an instinctive hiss.

The bow hadn't hit skin or anywhere near to it. A good foot from Jake's nether regions and directly between his knees, the tip of the long wooden staff buried itself in the ground. It had never been a danger to him or his manly bits. The sigh of relief that left him also made Jake lose his balance; he wobbled on the still new muscles of his arms and legs before falling directly onto his back.

Tsu'tey laughed, thumped the bow once more onto the ground just to catch Jake's glare once more. His lips twisted into amusement, ugly look on his sharp face. "Too jumpy, Jakesully. You will never be a warrior if you cry out like a child. The ikran will eat you!"

Jake growled and used his arms to shove himself back, then to his feet. He brushed himself off with what little dignity he had left, batting his braid free of any access dirt. It itched when he let it get messy. "Not unless I eat them first."

"Don't you remember your lessons with Neytiri, Dreamwalker? You are connected and cannot hunt their flesh."

The human paused. Tsu'tey - joking? No. Couldn't be. He responded anyway, snide, "She is otherworldly so that just means I can hunt and eat anything I want."

He could have sworn a smile tried to fight itself onto Tsu'teys face. The warrior snorted but it came out less than irritated and instead of hitting at Jake again with his arm or bow, Tsu'tey tucked it back into place once more. "You must learn to not walk like a stunted infant before facing down hungry beasts. I will hit you at each stumble. Maybe then you will learn."

Jake laughed. "Yeah, yeah. The being beaten across the face is directly affected by just how in tune I am with nature. Nothing here will want to inter-connect with my ass if you hit me stupid. I'll become some viperwolves meal."

"Would be a very sad thing," said Tsu'tey, snorting. "At least then you will learn how we are all connected, Jakesully. Meal for a meal - we eat what we eat to survive in order to feed creatures like you to the animals."

"Eywa says so?"

"One can only hope," Tsu'tey started back to the thick of the forest, ducking under a large leaf. Jake paused, frowned, and followed.


	5. Chapter 5: Max

**Authors Note**: SOOOO I totally uploaded this a while ago to my DeviantArt account and forgot to toss it here. Rock on! So you get two chapters today – Chapter five and six! Aren't you excited?

As usual, I own nothing. For a full authors note, see chapter six.

**Chapter Five**

Ever since the Omitacaya embraced Jake with less than loving and spear wielding arms, Norm's scowl became permanently plastered to his face. It was so common place that Jake had officially labeled it his default expression, much like Tsu'teys irritating smug smirk and Augustine's constant frustration. So when he rolled himself into the lab and Norm had cast a look dark enough to murder Quaritch in his tracks, Jake thought nothing of it and, in fact, managed a grin in return. It faded quickly enough when he noticed they were all stuffing things into packs and even Max looked at him with some sort of betrayed expression to his usually cheerful face.

"What's going on?" Augustine glanced at him with a rather interesting expression of dissatisfaction and blasé uncaring. It didn't stop her from thrusting a wicked looking bit of metal into a cloth pack in a manner usually below her in level of violence.

"I'm not about to let Quaritch micromanage -my- operation," She bared her teeth, looking far too much like a pissed off Neytiri for his comfort zone. "I've received permission from Selfridge - we're taking this to the sky. There's a remote connection there. So pack it up, jarhead."

Jake didn't react for a long moment. How she found out about his connection to Quaritch escaped him but then again, Tony had always teased him for being observant only on the battlefield. He missed Max's guilty shifting, caught only the back of the white-suited scientist when he turned away. What was not lost on him, though, was the way Norm's face lit up at the mention of where they were taking the experiment; it made his awkward face look almost handsome, eyes bright in the way that reminded Jake painfully of his twin brother.

"Wait - we're going to the Hallelujah Mountains?" Eager Norm almost dropped his pack in what Jake assumed was glee, sounding like the Na'vi had offered -him- a place in their society.

Augustine looked at him and laughed. "Yeah."

"The -" Norm beamed and then looked to Jake with that same self-righteous expression he saw too often on many Na'vi faces. "The Hallelujah Mountains? The legendaryfloating mountains of Pandora? Have you heard of -them-?" He smirked, looked away. Luckily for him, Jake was too lost in his own surprise and some strange sort of elation to be worried about punching him in the nuts - Norm always seemed to forget that with Jake in a chair and him being a gangly fuck it meant his crotch sat in the perfect punching level. Fucker.

"Don't give him such a hard time, Norm," Max, surprisingly, came to Jake's rescue. He heaved a sigh, turned back to Jake, and gave him a faint smile. "You'll see - they're gorgeous. Trudy's taking us so you'll get a fantastic vantage point."

"You're going?" Relief. True and utter relief. Max had quickly proven himself to be the only one in Augustine's clique to take Jake seriously as an Avatar rider, the closest thing Jake had been able to call a friend. At the very least, he classified as an ally. Smarmy comments about Jake's vocabulary aside, Max never talked down to him. "Fantastic."

"Only on the ride out, unfortunately. You're going to need some help getting all this unpacked," Max hefted his bulging backpack, laughed and placed it gently on a harsh metal cart. "But then I'm coming back with Trudy and the plane. The location doesn't have enough room for more than three people."

"Just me, you, and Norm," Augustine zipped up her bag, put it on the cart next to Max's. "I think that's all of it, kids. Time to get a move on - Jake needs to be waking up soon."

Max clapped a hand on Jake's shoulder in a show of masculine support. The Marine managed to stifle a groan; stuck with just those two for at least another two and a half months was going to drive him crazy. Possibly homicidal. The idea of getting his Avatar body a machine gun to mow down the operation placated him enough to quell the desire to pull off the nut-punch to Norm. Jerk wasn't worth getting rotated home at this point in the game.

Max kept with Jake's pace, letting Norm and Augustine walk as quickly as they liked. The unlikely duo fell behind in no time, drowning out Norm's excited blather with silence. Max spoke first, his hands pushed tight into his lab coat pockets.

"I told them about Quaritch," He didn't look down to Jake when he said this and Jake didn't look up. Max spoke slowly as if revising each word as he spoke it, lips pursed in some vague disapproval. "I saw you talking to him, telling him about the structure of Hometree. He isn't the good guy in this story, Jake. It's messed up you're helping him. Look, I don't know why you're helping him or what he's got on you but it isn't right. I don't feel bad for telling Dr. Augustine."

"Don't," Jake let his chair roll to a stop, looked down at his knees. Max paused as well, half-turning to face the other man. Jake tapped a little ditty against his elbow, expression flat. "All's fair."

"This isn't war, Jake, it's-" Max cut himself off, his hand grabbing at Jake's shoulder. The Marine batted him off. "Jake, what are you saying? Is this going to turn into some new-school Fern Gully or something?"

"Fern -what-?" Jake finally looked up, confused. Max stared down at him, arms crossing over his large chest. "What the hell are you - What?"

"Fern Gully. Human hits up a society of fairies who live in the forest, humans come and try to tear it apart, human saves the day. Big 'save the Earth' propaganda film back in the nineties," Max faltered, his nose wrinkling. "Mom was big into the classics, the pre-3D flicks sort of girl."

"... Right. You realize I'm being taught by a big dude who doesn't believe in that tree-hugging crap, right? Tsu'teys all but told me that he thinks Neytiri is full of it."

Augustine called out to them half a hallway down. Jake couldn't distinguish what she said but either way, both men started back up in their trek to the ship. What Max said next shot Jake into silence for the rest of the way there:

"Just because every Catholic isn't the Pope doesn't mean that they don't believe in God or miracles."

* * *

"What were you talking about back there?" Grace watched Max while Trudy helped get Jake into the craft. Two other military scrubs lifted Norm and her Avatar bodies in there as well, having to strap them in extra tightly to assure the multi-million dollar investments didn't fall off and fall into some six-footed hungry mouth. "He looks utterly miserable."

"You can see an expression?" That lifted a smile onto Grace's face and Max grinned himself. "I told him that I told you about his thing with Quaritch. Don't look so surprised, Grace, you know I suck at lying. He said not to feel bad and we talked about the being in tune with the world thing. Did you know he's never seen Fern Gully?

"He's smarter than you want to think, Doctor. Give him a chance; I think you'll be pleasantly surprised."

"Get on the plane," Grace flicked at Max's mask idly, sauntering off to the craft. She called out over her shoulder, loud enough for Jake to hear, "And I don't want to hear anything else about intelligent Marines! That's against the rules!"

* * *

Sorry no Tsu'tey this chapter. I ADORE Max and he deserved some damn screen time, damnit.


	6. Chapter 6: Viperwolf

**Authors Note**: Soooo it's been a super long time. Yeah. I'm actually _really_ sorry about that. Life exploded, yadda yadda, but I have a DVD player again and re-watched Avatar and it reinspired me for this story. I have no intention in letting it die, and luckily my job and living arrangements will give me more time to re-watch the movie and the like and let me write more.

As always, I own absolutely nothing about the movie, or the anything having to do with anything, except for the fact I write this little story here in my corner of cyber-space. I look nothing up except for stuff for spelling and the names of animals, stuff like that, so if I get shit wrong, _I know_.

Also, with the unobtanium that Grace talks about, it may be an example of 'Did Not Do The Research', but I really, really liked how the stuff made the mountains float in the original script. Have fun with that.

This chapter is dedicated to everyone who supported me, and an extra-special shout-out to my lithle. I adore you, you are lovely, and thank you for helping me through this slump. :3

**Chapter Six: Viperwolf**

In all of his experiences with life, Jake never quite got to the point where being a blue alien with a tail and a huge nose fell high on his list of shit he wanted to do, nor did it climb very much in the ranks when he had _absolutely no fucking choice_ in the matter. He knew, logically, that he made the decision to go there – Pandora, Hell, Place Where Tsu'tey Pranced – of his own free will, motivated by money and the idea to get the fuck away from a shithole of a planet they killed off a long time ago.

It didn't mean he wanted to be there, and he never said he wanted to be an alien (even if it came with a pair of legs that ran and jumped like no one's business). What being an alien when he never wanted to be _meant_ was that when Jake found himself actually enjoying life, just a little, he felt no huge press of guilt weighing down on his chest.

Tommy did not haunt him (too badly). It wasn't as if he thought his brother to be pissed off in Heaven, if there were such a place, or that Jake figured he should be miserable. Nothing like that.

He felt no guilt for fucking _loving_ the sight of Pandora under him, the greens and blues and, Christ, the way that animals flew around them and shrieked with way more life then he ever dreamed of back on Earth. The machine buzzed all around him, strong as the Omaticaya themselves, black and ugly in the sky as a harsh reminder that, yes, shit would probably get real, but that was alright, because at that Moment, Jake had Norm laughing in his ear, the wind rushing in his face, a smile on his own. Trudy said something, chortled, and even Augustine looked amused.

For a brief few moments, Jake thought 'this is awesome', and 'fuck, Tommy would have loved this' without the emotions of being punched in the gut by an otherworldly force. All he had to do was close his eyes to enjoy the swift current, hands spread over the seat to feel the vibrations as Trudy flew them to what would be his new home, or something.

"And this is the thing that keeps messing up my radars, boys," She turned, the 'copter dipping, and something tight and excited coiled in the base of his gut, a surge of adrenalin, hot and animalistic. Even on Earth, when being put to a mission, everything was only hard synthetics – no windows, no nothing, not that you'd want to look outside anyway. They'd made it all the same. So he opened his eyes, squinted down to see a brilliant, beautiful tree (or something like that) far down below.

It dwarfed the things around it; white-pink self stretched far and wide, something even more ethereal about it then the entirety of the rest of the damn planet. Even the six-legged animals could be _real_, even if they were dark mottled purples and blues.

"Tree of Souls," said Augustine, too loudly and with a note of what passed for excitement in her voice. Science Puke, Quaritch called them. He had a point, a good one, but Jake felt that same giddy thing Augustine did when he looked back at her. She grinned, the lines on her face deeper for it, but her pleasure at seeing whatever it was they saw (Tree of Souls, Jake, you moron, it's probably important) made her look younger. Alive. Even the pack of hand-rolled cigarettes in her upper pocket couldn't keep him from thinking she'd probably die from lung cancer at an early age. "_Vitraya Ramunong. _It's their connection to Eywa."

She looked back to the tree and said, wistful, "I would _die_ to get samples."

Tommy's voice murmured in his ear, 'Chekov's gun. Hasn't she heard of that?'

And Jake thought, 'Who the fuck is Chekov?', confused until he remembered Tommy blathering on one day when they were small and in secondary, about plays and a guy named Chekov.

"You know what I would die for? A good reading. I need to fly blind here and-"

"With all the clouds?" said Norm, who apparently never heard of letting a lady finish her sentences. Trudy smiled anyway, winked at him. She looked younger too, when she smiled, and prettier then Jake thought a military girl should.

There were only two women in the Marines: sluts and bitches. Oh, he did not think of them truly in those ways, but after hearing it for fuck-knows-how-many years, Jake found it difficult to not have the phrase flash in his mind when she gestured Norm over. She took the scientists hand in her own, showed him how to shift gears, and something in the bright eyes and Norm's incredulous smile over being able to do something so utterly _badass_ made him believe that, no – Trudy happened to be a girl with a crush, and in the military.

Norm was just stupid, staring out the window like that instead of at the girl.

Jake looked back outside, to the trees and disappearing waters, and could not find it in himself to blame Norm in the least.

That's when the floating mountains appeared, and Trudy started to laugh at them, tease them about their faces. Jake stared, because those mountains were fucking _floating_, Jesus Christ.

Even Augustine laughed.

What a glorious goddamn day.

* * *

Beuller.

And yes, she meant it like the old school fucking television show. God, Augustine, show your age a little more.

Trudy opened the door to the small refrigerator, ignored the photos taped on with great care. Jake, wanting to ignore Beuller and the fact he'd have to get into something _glitchy_ (again, like the parachute he had that one time during a jump), rolled over to check it out.

Neytiri smiled back at him, surrounded by children not her own and her arm wrapped around a girl that looked like her. They all looked the same to him, but, you know, when a kid had the same sort of trappings as the little holy girl and the identical smile, it sort of tipped things off. He thought they were happy in it, and the kids, some of them he recognized. Scars and things helped, even if they happened to be small.

He reached out, touched the sign for 'FOOD ONLY' with the small scrawl of 'seriously, I'll kill you' in Augustine's less than pristine handwriting, and the paper bent away. Jake cocked his head, fingertips flicking it up to see a photo of Tsu'tey, his scowl in place and quite fierce, and his hand up in what the history books called a 'hippie peace sign'.

Right. Fucking brilliant.

Augustine continued to talk, lurching Jake out from his little discovery. He glanced up at her, face schooled, hands casual on the armrests of his chair.

"You aren't listening, are you?" She looked at him, the Stare of Augustine not unlike Mo'at's, her mouth pulled into a tight little knot. "I should just let you get stuck in that body, you know, for a few weeks."

"And miss out on my charm?" Augustine snorted, turning her back to him in disgust. Jake grinned, a small curl of his lips, and pushed back.

Norm poked his head inside, big nose covered in something unrecognizable. Eyes wide with excitement, teeth bright and white and weird, he asked, just as nosy as the rest of him, "Is that _possible_?"

Augustine snorted, because she found all of Norm's silly excited questions to be hilarious. "No, unfortunately. He'd end up getting himself killed, anyway."

_Hey. Right over here_. Though, he supposed being talked about as if he were not there could not be the worse part about the day. He'd flown through the air, been something short of amazing, and even though he had to pull his ass into a thing called _Beuller_, it still meant being able to run around. All in all, things could be worse, no matter how high or low the situation tended to be on Jake's list of Shit To Do. All of that in mind, Jake ignored them and their dislike of him and his impossible getting stuck schemes.

Jake turned away, choosing to escape to the small, tight confines of where he would be making his reports for the next – however long they chose to be up there. "How does this thing float, anyway?" His fingers trailed over the microphone, flicking it on, along with the video. Jake glanced up, seeing himself on the screen with Norm and Augustine in the background, the both of them too wrapped up in their own conversation to really pay attention to the fact he recorded them.

Augustine looked over at him, her mouth curled up into a grim line. He'd come to recognize the expression as 'grudging surprise', when he asked a question she thought he either shouldn't know, or should not think of questioning. She tapped her fingers on the curve of her elbow, worn expression pulled into something more exasperated then irritated.

"Selfridge doesn't like to yak about it, but there are two separate sorts of unobtanium. More than one." She held up two fingers, wriggled them at him in a manner that reminded him of his second grade teacher. Mrs. Lewis liked to think Tommy being smart meant that Jake had to be, by default, stupid, and made him feel it. She stopped when Tommy purposefully started to flunk his tests – that smarmy son of a bitch.

Jake missed him.

"Thing is, one is grown naturally, with the trees and things – Hometree is a great example. After time, unobtanium changes, like coal into diamonds, and it starts a sort of – of magnetic effect. Grounds breaks away, starts to float, and forms its own sort of islands and hills and structures. We think, anyway." She wrinkled her nose, fingers tightened on her arm. "It's notoriously difficult to get samples from the underside of the mountains, and unobtanium from places like Hometree are things we don't even want to contemplate."

"I'd love samples of the vines," Norman sighed deeply, his eyes wistful and hungry. He had that same sort of greedy nerd look to his face that Jake saw a million times before, not only on his brother. The Marine looked away, to the camera, and he pulled a face. "I mean, imagine the _strength_ it takes to tether down the Floating Mountains. What kind of structure could they possibly have? What—"

Jake tuned him out, easiest way to deal with Norm.

He didn't get into Beuller until the next day. By then, Jake felt damn near stir crazy.

"You did not awaken before."

Jake remembered the list of things he didn't want, or never imagined, or didn't even particularly even care to comprehend, and waking up to his back being on the ground and Tsu'tey's big ugly foot _on his fucking chest_ was so low on the list he'd be surprised any ink remained. He squinted up at Tsu'tey, lips peeled back in an unthinking snarl. Tsu'tey and his damnable sneer did not move; his toes flexed and pushed harder against Jake, eyes narrowed and bright and still way too big.

"Tsahik said all Dreamwalkers do not Walk the same. I say, bury him anyway." He revealed even more teeth, tail cracking in the air in irritation. "Perhaps with a seed from Eywa, to taunt the short creatures in our forests. Jakesully did not _move_, hardly breathed."

"Sorry to crush your dreams," Jake grunted the words, hands going up and gripping Tsu'tey's leg. He dug his fingers against the steel-hard muscles of Tsu'tey and his leg, though the warrior didn't show any sign of feeling it. "We moved. I rested."

"No." Tsu'tey pressed down hard enough to make the marine hiss, wheeze a little, and then withdrew his leg. He kicked off Jake's leg, sneering still, and hand toying with the knife on his belt. "No resting. You wish to live as Omaticaya, Jakesully? You wake each day with the Omaticaya, and work and fight as us. Lazy means death."

Jake got to his feet, wary and tensed, ready to slam his fist into a long blue throat if Tsu'tey pushed him around (or tried to), but the tall man did nothing but glare at him with those teeth bared and hand so very close to his knife.

They eyed one another, tension thick until a child shrieked with laugher to the side. Tsu'tey grimaced, some of the malice fading from him just in time for Jake to believe that he would not be stabbed in the chest just yet, and that Tsu'tey had better things to do then get yelled at by Mo'at for murdering him. _Jake_ had better things to do then die.

"Horse thing today?" He brushed off his back, mud and tree and something else smelling like Home Tree crumbling off his skin. Jake shot a glance to Tsu'tey, an eyebrow hitched up higher on his forehead. Tsu'tey shifted from one foot to the other, his tail failing in whatever effort put forth to not twitch. "Direhorse. Right. I'm getting better, aren't I?"

"No." Tsu'tey pushed past him, shoulder hard against Jake's in an effort to send him tumbling. Jake frowned, and contemplated flicking him off, but did not as Tsu'tey probably evolved eyes in the back of his head and would see it. The former Marine bared his teeth anyway, picking up the pace to catch up with Tsu'tey, and avoid getting a bow and arrow set to the chest. "You kill things today."

Wait. _What_.

"Oh," Said Jake, because that was the intelligent response, but Tsu'tey did not turn around, at all pleased. "Well. People or animals?"

Tsu'tey laughed, that smarmy little fucking cocky-ass laugh that made Jake want to punch him in the throat, and his shoulders set into a hard line of immediate distaste. Jake caught up, close enough that their elbows almost brushed because _that wasn't weird at all_. Tsu'tey didn't shove him away (the act wouldn't be below him, Jake already knew that part, mainly because it'd happened before), but he kept walking, strides lengthening in a way that make Jake and his still healing feet wince. His feet had once been tough enough to stand it, but they got blown to uselessness way too long ago and the soft pads of his toes and heel now just ached like a bitch.

"Animals." Tsu'tey looked over to him, large eyes still narrowed and suspicious, his full mouth pressed into a taunt smirk. "And you shall learn how to properly send a beings spirit off to be with Eywa."

"Oh," said Jake, who really didn't care. You kill things, they leave. Some people wanted to be religious, think things existed that he never saw the slightest hint of, and that was fine. They said swords had the handles they did because it meant each man would die with a cross in their hands. Jake had been told that in the Marines, and didn't much care about that, either. He looked at Tsu'tey for a long moment, unimpressed, and then gave one curt nod towards the woods. "Right. Eywa demands the proper sort of sendoff then?"

Tsu'tey shoved him, hard with the edge of his elbow, lips twisted then into a sneer.

"No," He scowled at Jake, who refused to stumble again in one day. Waking up with Tsu'tey's fucking foot on his chest threw Jake into something of a loop. His hair, mussed, was slicked back with something along the lines of self-consciousness. "Eywa merely requests we acknowledge her and the rules of the world. She does not demand anything. But." The corner of his lip curled up, disdain for Jake in every movement of him.

"But – it is respect. The animal dies for us in order to feed us, cloth us, to give praise to the children and mothers. It's only right to acknowledge their fight for survival and the sacrifice given with a proper death, a ritual, and a few words. Dreamwalkers – disrespectful lot. I would not assume you knew anything about that."

Another sneer, the lips peeled back far enough to show the whites of his teeth, and Jake felt the pull of his own mouth in a return smile-snarl just enough to quell the desire. Baring his teeth like some sort of cat (some sort of giant striped glowing cat) would not be a wise move, not with Tsu'tey on edge like he was. So Jake kept his mouth shut, his expression closed, and Tsu'tey finally gave up long enough to shove a bow set at him. Jake didn't fumble the damn thing, though his fingers curled around it with something along the lines of confusion, and irritation.

"I thought you didn't believe in that sort of mumbo-jumbo."

Tsu'tey laughed, something that Jake would call a 'bark' if not for the fact that anything canine in Tsu'tey sorely lacked, and he had a feeling the mook could somehow see the insults in his brain. "Just because I do not think that keeping you as a pet, a little unconnected child, is wise because the seeds of the Sacred Tree chose to rest on you, that does not mean I do not _believe_. Neytiri is—" and he stopped there, maybe because talking shit about Neytiri in the middle of the little tree village would be unwise, or maybe because Jake actually _listened_ to him, actually seemed interested for whatever reason, and Tsu'tey snorted. He looked to Jake, hard, and then thrust a bundle of arrows at him.

Jake inhaled; the arrows did not smell like poison he'd scented on other arrows.

The older warrior did not explain, or at least didn't seem to care to, and he turned on his heel and walked off again. They walked in silence.

* * *

"Mother _fucker_!"

And he got the wooden shaft of the bow smacking against his head. Jake ducked down into trees, snarling and swearing under his breath because, _shit_, he'd been bitten, bitten on his thigh by the big ugly black beastie that Tsu'tey managed to shoot right before it leapt at Jake, in the breathing-hole, or whatever you called it because Jake didn't care, but it still got its teeth on his thigh.

So Tsu'tey hit him, and ignored Jake's irritation to kneel by the creature. "Listen, Dreamwalker." He snapped, and pressed one hand to the wheezing thinks head, gentle and kind, because he murmured quick alien words. Jake slumped back, pissed more because this new body and the sensitive nerves meant that a single shallow bite hurt more than the time Marshall accidentally kicked him in the nuts while simultaneously shoving a too-sharp fork into his upper arm.

Jake got the tattoo for a reason. Fork-scars weren't sexy, nor did they make good tales to woo the ladies with. Getting a bullet to the spine just meant his body in shock and a lack of feeling in everything below the waist.

Tsu'tey shoved the knife home, a wicked hard thing that instantly ended the creatures breathing. He continued saying the words, as quiet as ever, far softer and fatherly than anything Jake heard him use before. Long blue fingers stood in a harsh relief against the slick ebony flesh of the predator they were going to skin and eat later that night. Tsu'tey had said predators tasted of the prey they fed upon, and since Jake did not have his _ikran_ (and made it perfectly clear he did not wish for Jake to have one, ever, at all), they could not hunt the few prey beasts that didn't taste of the woodsy underbrush the Omaticaya already ate enough of.

"That is how we send their spirits off. You will learn the words, and the feeling behind them." Tsu'tey concentrated on the dark monster, gave him a few seconds of breathlessness before he pulled the arrow free. He wiped the arrow on his leg, mindless of the smear it left there of the creatures ridiculously colored blood. "They have no meaning if you do not feel them. It is unkind to the animal."

"I don't think I can feel bad about killing something that tried to eat me first."

_That_ got him a look, a quick glance and glare, and without any of Tsu'tey's teeth showing chuckles. He pointed at Jake using the arrow tip, large eyes hard and unyielding in their anger. At least they held no disappointment. Jake figured that since Tsu'tey expected nothing of his empty-cupped self that it meant he had nothing to be disappointed in.

Well, good. He hated letting people down.

Like Quaritch. Fuck. Maybe the man rubbed him the wrong way, but at least he had the authority and manner Jake knew, and trusted, and he asked him as a favor, Marine to Marine, scar to scar, old man to little kid in a way Jake sure as fuck never got from his dad. He'd have to make his report that night.

"I have showed you how to walk silently in the trees, Jakesully, how to not leave a mark, not to make a sound, how to hide even your scent. If you decide to act stupid, childish, with the noise and the moving, do not blame the animal for protecting him."

"Him." Not a question, but Tsu'tey smirked, because Jake didn't know the fucking difference between 'him' and 'her' in this damn place. Animals didn't have balls, and he'd have issues with the Omaticaya because damn, they all had lashes. Only the women's boobs saved them from embarrassing pronoun mix-ups, because even Tsu'tey had some waist and hips on him.

But Tsu'tey said nothing to the not-question, tucking away his arrows, slinging his bow over his shoulder. He picked up their now-meal, cradled it like a baby. "Walk _silently_," he said instead, and started through the brush.

Jake heard nothing in the trees. Oh, if they could be silent, so could the animals, but he had the pressing need to explain his issues anyway. He smelled of blood, ichor, whatever you wanted to call it, and his leg hurt so he couldn't be quiet anyway. Jake gimped along, distaste for his lack of military-ingrained stealth.

"I used to be silent." Tsu'tey kept walking, even when Jake's voice broke the quiet. He failed to tell him to shut up, though, and Jake figured that was good as any indication as any that he had permission to keep going. "Back when I was a Marine and had both legs. Not an excuse. This body feels more everything, anyway, let alone getting used to the whole 'being mobile' things."

The admission paused Tsu'tey, and he looked back to Jake with an unreadable expression. Jake returned the look, unswayed even with the trickle of blood down the inside of his knee. It tickled.

"Had both legs." His lip pulled upwards, the arrogant tilt of the head once more quite firmly in place. Jake ground his teeth, felt the muscle in his jaw leap with a big 'hey, fuck you, buddy', and kept quiet about that particular bit of wanting to kick Tsu'tey in the abdomen. "You have no legs?"

"Well, I do, but they can't move. Can't feel anything from here, down." He gestured to the entirety of his lower half, fingers fanning against the air, and looked at the blue-on-green of the trees and himself. And fuck, he felt Tsu'tey staring, and if it happened to be that pitying look old women and young soldiers got when they found out or first saw him, he'd kill Tsu'tey. He would. He could.

"Why?"

Why? Jake asked himself that too many times to really be sure over the years. Tommy said, war is senseless, Jake, but you did your best, you saved that guy, and yeah, he saved that guy. That guy – Jake didn't even know his name, or didn't remember it, anyway – that guy only lost some fingers, not his arm or his hand, or anything important at all. _That guy_ came out just fucking fine, and Jake lost everything.

"War," he said in lieu of anything else he could have said, and continued on, because Tsu'tey didn't say anything for at least thirty seconds and Jake didn't feel like looking up or standing in silence anymore. "One of my guys was in the open and enemy fire came. A lot of guys managed to get down, to start firing back, and this moron gets a bomb thrown at him. Something thrown at him, anyway, not that it matters anymore. New kid, fresh out of training, should not have been there but even with the number of fucking people in the world, no one wants to protect themselves from anything but fucking pollution and muggers." Not that any of the precautions helped Tommy any. "I'd been down, killed some guys I think, and ran like hell to the kid.

"I jumped him." Jake saw it plain as day, as if it happened just hours before: the boy and his terrified wide eyes, frozen fingers, something cowardly in him not pounded out of him in basic or training period. "Grabbed him. Explosive hit, shrapnel went everywhere. A chunk of something," He held up his fist, balled it up as if that were the size of what went through him. Maybe it had been, but Jake refused to look at it when the field doctors offered, after they kept him from dying. "Right where our tails are now.

"Kid lost some fingers, is all. He lived. He's alright."

Tsu'tey continued to be quiet, rare and unusual for him, and Jake finally glared up at him from under angry alien eyebrows, thin mouth twisted up into something dangerous if he saw that goddamn look in his eyes.

He found no such pity; hell, Jake barely saw emotion in those dilated pupils or the briefest curl of Tsu'tey and his mouth.

Tension laid out between the two, thick as the air before a thunderstorm, could have been cut with a knife. They stared at one another, finally two warriors on some sort of footing almost equal. Tsu'tey snorted, and turned away, his voice sharp.

"It is no excuse." Oh thank god. Jake relaxed, could feel each muscle in his body loosen up with Tsu'tey and his lack of issues giving him shit. "The trees tomorrow. You will learn silence, or I will shove you out of them."

Thank god. Eywa. Whatever.

They went back to Hometree, and Jake barely felt the wound in his leg. He flew high in his relief and the lack of quiet distaste and pity from Tsu'tey.

* * *

"What're those big ugly black cat things called?"

Norm looked up from his microscope, eyes rimmed red from the eager pressure he'd put on it. "What? Oh! Oh, the Viperwolf? Er, why?"

"The _nantang_," Grace continued to type her own report at her screen, though the corner of her lips twitched. "Norm, don't encourage his lack of language learning. He needs to—"

"Stop being a – scowm?" Jake attempted. Both scientists graced him with unimpressed Looks, but Norm soldiered on, bolstered by Jake at least _trying _to not be stupid all of the time. Jake supposed he tried hard to not be a complete asshole to Tom's brother, but Norm seriously failed at it. He enjoyed being smarter than Jake, and Jake didn't blame him in the slightest.

He liked knowing he could kick Norm's ass in either one of his bodies. It all worked out in the end.

"We had some today. Tsu'tey killed it, trying to show me how to not, you know. Disrespect spirits." Grace looked back to her microscope, and for the fucking life of him, Jake didn't know if that happened to be a good or a bad thing. Shit. Norm, however, somehow managed to look down at Jake from that beaky nose of his, lips pressed together in a 'why the hell did they pick _you_' expression.

"If he's trying to show you how they treat wildlife, Jake, the _least_ you could do is try to understand. No one has been hunting with them before! You—"

"Norm." Augustine and her quiet admonition of the young man silenced him. Jake looked down at his food on that lonely little table, a tube of white paste of fucking something Jake forced at him each night, and his stomach lurched. His brain said they had just eaten, and settled in for the night, but his human body decided to remind them that it hadn't been fed, and Jake better do it right then and there.

He grabbed a fork (Christ, Jake hated forks, fuck the forks, seriously) and thrust it into the paste with a force not required to eat something so easily pierced. It split apart like one of the old-time rolls of soft white cheese, and the smell of synthetic protein brought him right back to Venezuela and the crap they used to feed the guys. People wondered why the army dogs of the new day and glorious ages had no qualms over raiding towns for food.

"They taste better than this." Jake shoved the first forkful into his mouth, and did his best to pretend that, hey, it was real food. Not all the seasoning in the worlds could convince him, and the melting texture held nothing to the firm flesh of the predator – the Viperwolf – but Jake swallowed obediently. "Fuckers bite like hell too."

"Your body was wounded?" Augustine looked up again, sharper than before and her eyes eagle-intense. Granted, Jake had never seen an eagle outside of pictures and zoo holograms, but he remembered that piercing gaze. "What happened?"

"I made noise. He jumped, bit me when Tsu'tey arrowed him in the blowhole. I wasn't allowed my knife." Jake took another bite, face blank because he really, _really_ disliked it. "It'll be fine. Mo'at took care of it. I think she threw some sort of healer intern at me."

"You aren't supposed to refer to her as Mo'at. She is _T__sahik__._"

Jake really wanted to punch him. He ate some more instead, and they let the subject drop. He'd make his report later.


	7. Chapter 7: Let You Down

Authors Note: So I've found that this particular story can only be written by hand and then transferred over to text once I'm done writing it. I'm not the quickest writer by hand but it means that it comes out the way I want it to, not a slap-dash thing of craziness I dislike. This update is around 3,800 words but… it took a while.

I hope you guys enjoy it. Comments help me write faster! Honest! So please comment? /baw.

**Chapter Seven: Let You Down**

He did not make his report later. Jake did, in fact fall asleep sideways on his cot, silent, mouth open, and drool on the rough sheets. He woke up the proper way and figured someone had enough fucks to give in order to move him.

Augustine sat at her station once Jake managed to open u gummy eyes, inner alarm clock made of an odd mesh of his Basic Training drill instructor and Tsu'tey's voice going 'lazy! Lazy! Wake up!' Too goddamn early.

"You're awake," she said without looking up from her microscope. Her pen scratched at a piece of paper, presumably making coherent words, but at least she had stopped frowning. "On time. Early, even."

"Princess Snarly gets irate when I wake up past dawn." That motherfucker.

"Oh no," Grace's mouth twitched in what he labeled as 'bitch amusement', her eyes crinkled some at the corners. "He's making you use that very expensive and technologically advanced body we generously gave you." She paused, mouth twisting from the almost-smile into something lie distaste. "Something given to you by accident but—"

Jake rolled his eyes and his chair, hitting up the disgusting fridge with Grace's scrawling all over it. "Yeah, I know." He muffled his voice with the plexi-glass door, peering inside. "This shit is disgusting."

Augustine made a vague noise of agreement, her attention once more on whatever it is she sent hours staring at under the damn microscope. Jake, having disappeared from her scope of interest once again, sighed and stared at the pile of disgusting ass food people liked to pass off as nutritional somewhere in there. He wanted to roll out and stab something six legged and delicious in the nothingness of the forest to rip apart with his bare, human teeth.

Even then, he missed the sharp canines of being the big blue dude.

Fuck.

He was going to be late.

Jake wolfed down the length of squishy disgusting mess of disgustingness, wiping his hand over his mouth. "I'm going in to Bueller."

Another noise and that's when Augustine managed to look up at him with something outside of disgust and personal distaste for his ability to suck in air and walk at the same time. Jake ignored the small personal victory as a fluke of nature, like the platypus of Earth legend.

(He'd seen pictures of them, fucked up creatures, but never in life. They'd died way before he'd even been thought of.)

"Don't get attached, Marine." Grace said, ruining his dramatic exit completely. Jake paused, looked back at her with an expression he knew to be unreadable. They didn't just teach you to take orders and murder people in the military - a guy had to hide his thoughts or emotions, otherwise shit just went to... well, shit. She stared right back, her face hard and jaw tensed, the only thing belying the actual feeling she had behind those words. Her fingers tapped irritably at the table, chewed on nails managing to still make noise on the pretend wood of the table. (He assumed it to be fake; somehow harvesting Na'vi trees didn't sit right in his stomach, like most of this bullshit.)

"I'm not going to lose these legs." He said, voice flat.

"They'll let you down." Augustine said. "Humans, Omaticaya. People in general. I'll let you down."

Jake's fingers tightened on his wheels. "And me?"

A ghost of a smile flickered across her thin lips. "Please. Like anyone would put their trust and hopes in a moron Jarhead." Augustine waved her hand, turning back to her microscope and whatever-the-fuck was under it. "Just make sure to not start thinking stupid things. Quaritch and Selfridge don't give any shits and the Omaticaya are curious about you."

Bitter bitch. Jake nodded. "Right." and he headed off to Bueller.

* * *

"So," said Jake. He crouched by Tsu'tey, knife in hand to skin a recently killed... whatever it was they'd downed. "I'm a savage."

Tsu'tey grunted; while a very manly, irritated noise, it did little to deter the line of the questions he'd heard Norm wanting answered. The little fucker still gave off 'pissed as hell' vibes whenever Jake went into his human body but still hung on every work as he recorded. Jake figured, may as well try to endear himself to the science puke (as Quaritch put it), like one would make the doctor at a field hospital like them.

"As a savage, I wanted to know if you had war." The other man looked up from the kill, his face hard. Jake returned the look with his typical flat expression. "You know, raiding other clans, stealing, killing."

"Do you _all _think like this?" Tsu'tey stabbed a loose piece of hide, contempt dripping from his every word. "Of nothing but death towards ones people? You sky people disgust me."

He spat to the side, away from Jake. Disgust, like hissing meant anger or frustration. Jake held up his hands, knife balanced on his thigh, tail still.

"You have bows and war paint. You wanted to kill me-"

"Past tense is not right."

"Awesome, Augustine taught you grammar. I'm just saying, that if you didn't kill each other, why all the violent things?"

Tsu'tey pulled his knife free and went back to work, teeth bared. His tail twitched every so often. When he spoke, Jake had the distinct impression that Mo'at or someone had ordered all questions answered. There was that whole 'empty cup' thing she'd been talking about since they all first met in the jungle with a knife to his fucking throat.

"There was fighting between clans. Too many of us, not enough food. When they parted ways – Ikran people, Forest people, Horse people, they killed for food and rights to power," Tsu'tey shrugged, a gesture taught by Augustine – or maybe Jake himself, though he couldn't remember the last time he'd been allowed to shrug in the face of a superior. Which Tsu'tey was, kind of. "Eywa became displeased. She sent each clan a tsahik, the first three. Too much blood, too many dead small ones. One tsahik, a woman, La'lei. She was a very fierce warrior from the Ikran people"

"Not one of the jungle people? Disappointing."

"Stop talking. _Listen_." Jake shut his mouth. "La'lei claimed Toruk, the first rider of Last Shadow. She painted her face to be his teeth, tattooed her body to appear as he did.

"Ladle spoke to each clan, loud, stubborn. She said, Eywa does not like this fighting and has sent these tsahik. Listen. Find your peace. She will give plenty. They listened, she had the largest, strongest creature at her call. How could Eywa ignore her?"

He threw the hide at Jake. It landed on his lap with a wet plop. Jake made a face, peeling it off as Tsu'tey gutted the animal and continued his tale.

"Five times of such things, five riders of Toruk."

Jake scraped his knife on the hide to start the cleaning process. He didn't look up. "Is there one now?"

"This is no such time."

The 'yet' hung between them, neither willing to say it. Their delicate truce of not to kill each other would shatter under that single word. Both men busied themselves with their tasks, silence reigning.

* * *

"Did you know about the five wars?" Jake scrubbed at his eyes, tired and seeing a few faint red spots and refusing to complain about it. Pain, weakness, leaving the body, all that. Plus, it meant Augustine couldn't call him a pussy.

Augustine's head show up from where she'd been dozing (or as she called it, studying).

"War?" She scowled, her default 'why don't I know this?' face. "No one has mentioned wars. As far as I'm concerned, there have never been any on this planet."

"Mm," said Jake, hiding his pleasure at being right for once. He settled in front of his report camera, eyes hooded. It felt… He felt uncomfortable reporting this to Quaritch, the information on wars and that they could bond to the giant monstrosities that were the Toruk. It sat heavy and sick in his stomach and instead of punching in the 'record' button, he stared at it, words distant even to himself. "Five of them. All ended when someone grabbed the big red dinosaur."

"Toruk." Norm corrected him from the other fucking room, voice ringing through the metal housing. He sounded disgusted, the pompous fuck, and looked into the room with a haughty expression. "How do you not know this? He is the largest flying creature on the planet. He could eat two mature Ikran for lunch."

Jake stared at him instead of the camera. Norm frowned. After an uncomfortable moment, he went back inside, muttering something Jake assumed to be insulting. Grace snorted, though she had her head down at the samples and, he suspected, actually listening more than studying. He frowned and flicked on the recorder.

His picture stared back at him, not amused, unimpressed, well aware that they were handing over very interesting information to Quaritch later that night.

Guilt tasted the same every time: a salty sour tang in the back of his throat, almost bilious, and it hurt the back of his teeth.

"Princess-"

"Her name is Neytiri, Marine."

"Tsu'tey. He said the first tsahik were made at the first war." The scrape of Augustine's pen paused. Jake grinned in triumph. "She rode the huge, man eating banshee to stop it. Warrior women and all that."

"A tsahik warrior?" said Augustine, sounding as disbelieving as Jake himself had been.

He grinned, not looking away from the camera. "They didn't tell you?" he asked, tone as serious and mild as he could make it. Augustine's lips tightened, her small eyes narrowed even further. "That's why the Ikran leader tattoos herself."

Grace refused to be placated. Her head turned very slowly to stare at Jake the same way a bird would a very small, stupid animal. He saw it from the corner of his eyes and cleared his throat, rubbing a hand through his still-short hair.

"We killed things today," he told the camera, and himself, and Quaritch, swallowing that bitter taste of guilt to start his report.

For a long, hard moment, Augustine stared at him. Jake refused to look back.

* * *

Funny thing about irony was that not a lot of people got the definition correct; most people thought that it was about things happening that was just talked about, maybe in jokes. Jake used it once, incorrectly, and had to listen to a ten minute lecture from Tom about what it totally really meant.

"No! Jake," he'd said, his twelve year old voice high with panic over his brother getting a vocabulary word wrong, small hands in the air, flailing. "Jake, it means something not that! I mean, it could depend on the situation, but things like - like situational irony - like a guy saying 'I'm an awesome swimmer' and then he drowns the next day, you know?" Jake did not know, spurring the conversation in a direction he never wanted it to go.

He'd never quite understood the nuances of the term 'irony'. The memory only cropped up the day that Tsu'tey came back from a hunt, bruised and cut from a nasty ass fall from his fucking Ikran after being chased by the big red lizard they'd talked about just a few days before. Whether Tom would've approved of the usage or not, he thought the situation to be fucking ironic and Tsu'tey, dazed and saying strings of horribly raunchy, insulting things about the beast when he came walking back from the forest insinuated he thought so as well.

And Jake had _just_started the day too, stomach empty and blurry-eyed from tree sleeping. He'd scrambled down the tree with way more grace than he'd been able to do two weeks prior. (Jesus, it'd only been that long?) Children ran and played, giggled, Mo'at taking the time to inform Jake that his babysitter had gone hunting at the rising of the sun and should return shortly, hopefully with dinner. He'd taken the time to chill out with some of the women making those hunting corsets all the hunting men wore. They spoke broken Common and he had barely any idea of what it was he said to them in their native language but it ended with four women giggling in a way that didn't feel malicious and Jake almost smiling.

The beading they tried to teach him ended up horrible but, hey, he got along with them so why not. Mo'at stared at them the entire time and the two mated women's men wandered by with suspicious looks; none of the women or Jake gave them any reason to be irritated, him at a healthy distance away and suitably frustrated with _failing_.

Before Tsu'tey and his dramatic entrance with six warriors flanking him, he'd only heard isolated swearing attempts from the Na'vi. They got nowhere near the "shut your cocksocket" his Marine buddies grew especially fond of but once translated, they were suitably dirty. He enjoyed learning them, much to Norm's disgust.

But Tsu'tey.

Oh, Tsu'tey. Glorious Tsu'tey. He walked into the little encampment with half of his face scraped raw and bloody, a mass of flesh, ear torn, the rest of what his body showed almost cut up. His corset thing had been ripped almost off of him, tail hanging limp and pupils' way too dilated to be healthy. And he said things such as "May he be fucked by the ugliest Ikran and water beast under the sea" and "His mother smelled of horse dung" and other things Tsu'tey probably never even thought of until he hit a gigantic tree side-first escaping from massive claws of the Toruk.

The other warriors rushed him to Mo'at, the tsahik instantly on her feet and grabbing a small bag he'd seen her carry before. Jake heard the distant keen of the Ikran, sharp piercing noises, ignoring it for climbing to his feet and starting towards the wounded man.

One warrior, a tall woman with a scar down one arm and calloused hands, spoke to the tsahik in rapid Na'vi, her hands on Tsu'tey's shoulders to get him sitting down. The large hunter stumbled and Jake jerked forward, grabbing his uninjured elbow to keep him from teetering down onto his hurt side and causing even more shock. He caught snippets of what she said, picking out the few words he understood like 'Toruk', 'smash', 'tree', 'nowhere', and 'sleep' in the context he assumed to mean 'black out'.

Tsu'tey squinted up at him, eyes nearly black with the dilation of his pupils. His mouth twisted to a sneer even as he leaned into the firm hold Jake had on him. With Tsu'tey stabled at least on his ass, Mo'at pulled open the pack, dragging out items. She snapped orders like 'water' and 'needle' (a word he'd just learned, thank you very much, Shinai).

"You are ugly," said Tsu'tey, words thick with shock.

"You look like a Batman villain," Jake said back, eyes rolling. "What happened?"

"Toruk," said Captain Obvious, his gaze unfocused. It lasted only a moment, narrowing in once more on Jake with more intensity then really required for the situation. "I - flew, and ducked. Hit a tree, came down on me. Too fast."

"... You _hit a tree_."

"Moron," Tsu'tey leaned in closer, thickly muscled shoulder resting hard on Jake's chest even as his head rolled back to the Avatar's shoulder. "Toruk hit the tree. It came down on me."

"Well, shit."

"Yes," Tsu'tey said very seriously. He didn't move his head from the nearly sprawled position when Mo'at came over, though his lips peeled back in a fierce hiss when she dabbed something thick and green to his face and chest, long fingers gentle on the cloth. The warrior let out another round of muffled swearing, teeth bared and free hand gripping tight on Jake's leg. He'd seen men weep over less and here this asshole was, just clinging and leaning, swearing, and nothing else.

Goddamnit, he hated it when his respect for fuckers like Tsu'tey went up for good reasons.

A young Omaticaya - girl, boy, he couldn't tell until they got older - ran up to help Mo'at, pulling out blue bandages to hand off to the tsahik. "At least he was not eaten. That is a good thing."

Jake snickered, an actual grin tugging at his lips. He squeezed Tsu'tey's elbow and got a glare for his efforts.

"You do not have to stay, Jakesully." Mo'at looked up at him through ridiculously long lashes. She managed to make it look intimidating still. Somehow. "You were working before he arrived."

"I was failing horribly at it too," Jake looked down at Tsu'tey's pale face, too wide eyes closed, lips pressed into a hard, tight line. It made his cheeks stand out even more, drew out the fact his facial structure was crazy. No wonder they thought he looked ugly, if guys like Eytukan and Tsu'tey were considered attractive. "I'm good at this."

"You will not learn if you do not push yourself."

Jake's lips twitched in stifled mirth. "We kind of hate each other. Can we call this pushing myself?"

Mo'at's eyebrows went up and he could've sworn he saw her smile too. Fantastic! "I suppose so."

That's when she took out a small needle with a thick black string attached. The moment it hit a particularly deep gash on Tsu'tey's chest, the warrior passed flat out on Jake's chest.

* * *

January Ramona Quaritch did not raise a fool son. She raised a lot of things, from black market poultry to a daughter that later died from lung poisoning, but she never brought herself up a weak-willed, idiot son. January refused to raise a boy as if he had to be protected from the outside world, more than happy to make sure he knew just what to expect from the world.

As soon as Miles had enough brains in him to hold his head upright, January took pains to ingrain good Southern manners into his little skull: always use 'sir' and 'ma'am', even if the person wasn't as good as you; hitting a woman was alright as long as it was to protect your life or that of another person; guns were for killing, not for playing; never burp at the table, respect your mama, and don't complain if asked to help out, just do it.

He joined the Marines as soon as he graduated high school – fifth in his class of too many, thank you very much, said January – and got himself into some mean situations. Her baby came back different even if he still said sir and ma'am, didn't burp at the table, and didn't pull his gun out all willy-nilly. She said there was hardness to his eyes and he walked differently.

The point of it all was that after January got old and sick, she sold all of the poultry, bid her son goodbye, told him that she loved him, and died, she left a son behind that lacked the ability to be stupid. Miles knew what he had to do and in what order things had to be done, recognized that orders were to be followed even if detours had to be made along the way, knew that Earth was dead and done for.

Pandora was perfect. He didn't have January's ashes with him (no one had any ashes with them, the government took everything) but he had a photo and what little Good Ol' Southern Manners managed to survive his run in the military.

First day, fucking huge black piece of shit tore his face up.

"The ladies love a man with a scar," the doctor on duty had said. Miles had enough military training to not reach out and punch him in the nose. The other man ended up going back early, driven insane by the constant threat of gigantic blue things with sharp spears and loud war cries.

Pussy.

So when Sully appeared on his screen for the first time in three days, his face flat and blank like any respectable man, Miles wasn't stupid enough to think that he happened to be alone in the room. He heard the shift and movement of a certain Science Bitch behind him, the shadow of her desk light casting a shadow of her hair. Sully looked to the side every so often as he talked.

… About wars and the fact the natives had experienced them.

Fantastic.

Glorious.

Miles tapped his thick calloused, scarred fingers on the top of his desk, jaw set tight despite his cynical amusement with the whole situation. Toruk, huh? They – the boys, his boys – called the fucking things Black Hawk for the shits and giggles. They were Dragon, after all, and the red beast couldn't be as well.

"Well." Said Colonial Miles Quaritch, leaning back in his chair. "Well, well, well. Looks like we have something to talk to Selfridge about, don't we."

Getting that boy his legs back would be the cheapest victory ever.


End file.
